A/N: There are far worse ways to welcome Death than by drowning. (Oneshot)

I suppose you could call this my take on Tyrion and Jorah's encounter with the Stonemen in Season 5, Episode 5. I haven't finished the books yet so do not know whether that scene is actually canon or not if it is the writers deciding to fill the next few episodes with fanfiction.

As I am not George R.R Martin or the producers; how can I hold any claim to 'Game of Thrones'? I am simply trying to get into fanfiction writing again after a long hiatus- please don't sue me!

Black Water

There are worse ways to die than drowning.

There are far, far worse ways and he has seen so many of them, ordered so many of them that he is surprised that he is even thinking of his own death. And, if truth be told, he had died long ago; long before the boat and the box and the suffocating stench of his own urine and faeces all mixed together with the sickening, rocking, pitching motion of the ship as it swayed its' way towards the sunlit summer isle of Pentos.

It would be far easier to live if he were dead. Truly dead. They could fear him all the more; fear his black, wrathful heart trapped inside a decaying, twisted body; fear the power he had harnassed to throttle the only woman he had truly loved; aim a crossbow at the heart of the man that he should have been able to call father.

The rope cuts into his wrists; the pressure of the rushing, surging water suffocating him as he twists this way and that; hearing the grunting shouts and cries of the Stonemen as they crowded the boat; hearing the dull thud of the oars as Mormont fends them off, the crash of a body hitting the water as he struggles away.

'Don't let them touch you!'

The words resonate through his brain, first as sharp and as clear as bells and continue to grow steadily duller. He is too far down; too far gone amid the swirling, churning abyss from them to touch him now. All that is here is the cold, dank bite of rope against his wrists and the memories.

The memories of those who had wished him dead more times than he can count, the memories of those who had helped him; of Jaime's strong arms around him as they parted in the passageway; of Sansa's dark eyes filled with fearful revulsion on their wedding night as they stood shivering in awkward, candlelit silence of the bed chamber; her hair cascading down her back like a waterfall of auburn fire; of Joffrey's ice blue gaze frozen with agony as he died in Cersei's arms, of Pod standing in the doorway to his cell back in Kings' Landing, tears glimmering at the corners of his eyelids….

When at last he finds the strength to open his mouth, the black water surges in; choking him. It gushes through his throat, overpowering his gaping lungs until there is no air left.

There is nothing left.

Nothing.

Nothing but the pounding of the water above him, of the abyss below him, as finally; finally he is able to let go and surrender to the blackness of oblivion.

'Tyrion? Tyrion!'

A face looms out of a world with blurred edges. A face that he vaguely recognizes, a face that seems to have the weight of the world pulling down upon it as it slips in and out of focus.

'Tyrion.'

Jorah.

Mormont.

His whole body aches; the weight of sodden clothes pressing down on aching muscles as he struggles to sit up; blinking in the dusky evening light. The weight of a hand in the small of his back steadies him; water dripping from his hair into his eyes.

'You're heavier than you look'. There is humour somewhere in that statement but he does not want to go about trying to look for it.

Mormont's voice is gruff; but somehow he can sense that there is fear there too; fear that his gift to the fabled legend of Danaerys Targaryen would be spoiled before they reached Mireen.

'Did any of them touch you?'

He can't remember.

Everything had been a blur of water and pain and the shadowy hull of the boat pitching above him, of the sudden panic rising like bile in his throat as he realised his hands were still tied, that there was no way that he could physically fight the Stone Men; that he would have to rely on instinct and luck alone to get out alive.

'You?'

Tyrion's voice still feels rough from the gag and the water that had flooded his lungs as he looks up at Jorah; still kneeling on the sand in front of him.

'I'll find wood for a fire,' he says at last; his gaze scanning out over the water towards the ruins of Valyria; the ruins that had haunted so many Westerosi children's dreams; those dark ruins full of magic and superstition; full of dragons and monsters and Drogon and Danaerys….

'Thank you.' The words sound strange to the dwarf's tongue as he changes a glance at the knight. 'Thank you for saving me'.

It's sincere; or as sincere as it can be under the circumstances; but the look Jorah gives him in return is just as dark, just as brooding.

Through exhausted eyes, Tyrion watches his retreating back and then turns his gaze to the final bow of the sunset slowly sink behind the shadows of the ruins bursting the chains of the old ghosts aflame and smearing the sky with their blood.

Fin

A/N: Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!

Much love and enjoy x